


Oh, How We've Grown

by abovethesmokestacks



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: ...and here we see my inability to shelve anything and focus on what I should update, Angst, Based on Ed Sheeran song, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-23
Updated: 2017-01-26
Packaged: 2018-09-19 13:38:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9443324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abovethesmokestacks/pseuds/abovethesmokestacks
Summary: It wasn’t so much a castle as a pile of rocks, haphazardly placed on one of the hills. ”A giant’s pocket gravel”, your dad called it. Clint and his friends had claimed it for themselves, but you wanted to play there, too.





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when I try to focus on the fic I've got in progress and have been trying to update for almost two months: I listen to a damn song and I get the inspiration to work on another fic.
> 
> Based on Ed Sheeran's beautiful "Castle On The Hill", this will be a four-part fic, updated once a day.
> 
> Crossposted from my tumblr.

_When I was six years old I broke my leg_  
_I was running from my brother and his friends_  
_And tasted the sweet perfume of the mountain grass as I rolled down_  


”Clint, stop! Stop, it’s not funny!”

Your feet are moving as fast as they can, it almost feels like flying. Behind you, heavier footsteps thunder ever closer, the echoes of laughter and hoots driving you to push for more speed. Clint’s only three years older than you, a kind if somewhat mischievous brother. You adore him and the ground he walks on, but in this moment he and his ragtag band of friends are causing your heart to thump wildly in your chest with fear. You’ve left the safety of your block, out onto the fields and hills that spread out just through the thicket behind your home. It always feels like walking into another dimension, just beyond the shrubbery was fresh air, rolling hills and all the space in the world for your brother and his friends to play ”catch Clint’s baby sister”.

”Come on, it’s just a game!” he yells at you, his voice light and not betraying a single ounce of exhaustion.

Tears sting at the corner of your eyes and you chance a look backwards. It’s like that scene from The Lion King, where Simba gets chased by the wildebeests. You know that sooner or later they will catch up with you, and although you know them all, know that they’re not necessarily cruel, there’s something in you that wants to escape their shrill giggles and war-like screams.

”Sis!” Clint calls out again after you, dragging the i until it sounds like a taunt.

His friends mimic him, the usually affectionate moniker now a nightmarish cacophony of dissonant voices that strike fear in you. They’re all the same age, all of them the most terrifying 9-year-olds to ever grace your existence: Clint who sometimes plays indians and cowboys with you with a bow fashioned out of a knobbly branch and some string; Bucky and Steve who live next to each other across the street, not brothers but close enough you’d be fooled if you didn’t know better; Natasha with the red hair that makes you think of a warrior princess, by turns sweet and absolutely vicious; Sam who’s already charming the pants off half the block with a gaptoothed smile and a slight drawl to his voice; Tony with all the precociousness in the world jammed inside that head of his.

Your foot snags on something and next thing you know, you’re really flying. It’s in that split second you start to believe in magic, because how else could you see, hear and feel so much in the space of so little time? The way Clint’s eyes bug as you soar through the air, how your body curves and turns, the sound of a violent crunch just before it happens. It’s a small moment, and although it slips from your hand all too soon, you’re sure. There is something special out there, something that makes time slow down.

The world snaps back into place, and so does your leg. The thudding of feet is replaced by a pain so excruciating they echo through the fields as you roll down the hill, grass staining your white tights. When you finally come to a halt, the world still feels like its spinning, and tears are rolling down your cheeks in a steady stream as you cry out. Clint is by your side in a heartbeat, his friends crowding into your field of vision seconds later. Just like that, they’re not monsters anymore, they’re the friends you wish Clint would share with you.

”Shit,” he curses, eyes skittering over you in panic. ”Sis? Sis, are you okay?”

You can’t even answer, letting out another wail and wanting to curl up and disappear. You don’t want to be seen, not like this, not when everything hurts and nothing stays still, and you don’t even linger on the fact that your brother said a swear. Moving only makes the pain worse, a stabbing sensation in your left leg, and so you clamp your hands over your eyes. If you can’t see them, you don’t exist, and things feel a little bit better.

”Sis, I’m gonna get mom and dad. Just- just stay here. I-I-I’ll be back soon.”

Clint has never sounded so terrified in his life, and you can hear him run off, two or three sets of footsteps taking off. It draws out a whimper, a sense of abandonment that lingers until a hand touches yours so gingerly it makes you jerk.

”Hey, don’t be scared.” It’s Bucky, and you slowly pull your hands away to meet his gaze, so calm it shoots right through your spine. ”You’ll be okay. You ma and dad will be here soon.”

You nod between whimpers and poorly suppressed sobs, thankful to not be alone. Bucky stays next to you, joined by Steve on your left and Natasha behind you, running soothing fingers through your messed up hair.

”I- I just… wanted to play with you,” you stutter, sniffling and blinking away tears. ”In your castle.”

It wasn’t so much a castle as a pile of rocks, haphazardly placed on one of the hills. _”A giant’s pocket gravel”_ , your dad called it. Clint and his friends had claimed it for themselves, but you wanted to play there, too.

"We know, zayka,” Natasha says, her voice soothing and kind, a stark contrast to the vicious streak that you know hides beneath the surface.

”We shouldn’t’ve done that.” Steve looks positively distraught, his eyes looking worriedly down at your leg.

”Is it- Is it bad?” you ask, trying to get up so you can see for yourself, only to have Bucky gently push you down, whisps of his brown hair falling over his eyes.

”You’ll be okay,” he repeats, smiling at you in a way that makes you really wanna believe him.

It’s not okay. A broken bone never is, and your mother and father give Clint a tell-off that has him mute and nodding by your bedside at the hospital. You want to tell them that it’s not his fault, not entirely. You didn’t see the rock you stumbled over, but it’s no use. The nurses come in and give you a shot of something that has your eyes drooping before you can get a word out.

The cast itches and you hate it from day one. Any other time, you’d be happy to stay indoors, parked on the couch and allowed all the tv you want. The cartoons bore you by day three, and there’s only so much mobility you can get away with before you have to lie still again. Clint looks miserable as ever, but does everything he can think of to cheer you up. Your second week, he brings his friends around, armed with sharpies and the offer of a truce between you. The living room is filled with giggles as they sign the peace treaty on your cast, scratching their signatures onto it. A bow, a spider, a robot, a shield, a pair of wings, a bright red star.

A promise to last a lifetime.


	2. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Crossposted from my tumblr

There was a time when your brother held a quietly exhilarating fascination, when his every move was something to copy, when you wanted nothing more than for his friends to be your friends. After you got rid of the cast, you asked to keep the piece where they had all scrawled their marks, keeping it in your bookcase and later tucked in a box under your bed. For a while there was laughter and adventures in the castle, and hands ruffling your hair in good fun when something was too hard for you to do in your little games. Maybe there was a brief stint in that adoration, a dark period when the castle became ruins became stones became forgotten as the world turned, but here you are again.

Tony has brought a boombox and somehow managed to amplify the batteries, making sure it will last you through a good deal of the night. Sam insists on being DJ, loudly (and no doubt fortified by contents of the purple cup in his hand) calling into question the taste of the rest of you. It's Friday night in suburbia, and mischief is brewing. They're all back from their first semester at college, so grown up and sophisticated to your 15-year-old eyes that you feel small and childish beside them. You've denied a sip from the cups, but fearing they would make you leave you've accepted a cigarette from Bucky, mesmerized by the way his nimble finger measure out the dried leaves across the filter, deftly rolling it and sealing the paper with a quick swipe of his tongue.

You're not innocent, you know what happens to teenagers, to people in college.

_(at least in the movies)_

The smoke is bitter against your tongue, making your lungs contract uncomfortably as you fight the urge to cough them up. Natasha, beautiful and deadly, gives you small smile and expertly crooks an eyebrow at you. Of course. It's not your first. You're not innocent, not by a long shot. You know what it is to want, to long for something, and right now that longing is buzzing through you with every shaky exhale. Bucky has let his hair grow out, almost grazing his shoulders, his hands coming up to push errant locks behind his ears when they keeps falling out of place. His own cigarette bobs up and down between perfectly pink lips as he talks under his breath, and you feel your cheeks heat as you wonder what it would feel like to kiss them.

You shouldn't. You really shouldn't. Bucky's 18, he doesn't care for his friend's baby sister. You've gone from feeling like three years is nothing to feeling like you might as well be oceans apart in age. It makes an anger bubble inside of you, bitter as the smoke you force in and out of you, and it drives you to Sam, grabbing the cup out of his hand and downing the liquid sloshing in it. It's horrible and sour and you drink it all down with eyes screwed shut as Sam whoops somewhere back in the real world.

”Look at that, baby Barton's got some claws- ow!”

Clint has apparently punched Sam in the arm, not entirely unsurprising. Sam still possesses his childhood charm, honed and expertly used when he feels like it, but beyond the gentlemanly facade is a little shit who apparently turns into a huge little shit when inebriated. As the last gulp of tepid, stale beer is forced down your throat, you rush back to the present, head already spinning from the alcohol and excitement, tossing the cup at Sam with a wicked grin. The liquid turns in your stomach, and you briefly think that if this is what drinking beer feels like, there'd better be some damn good perks to it.

The night wears on, cigarettes are stumped and new ones are lit and you pilfer dregs from the guys (barring Clint who flat out refuses), your heart doing a little somersault when Bucky hesitantly hands you his. You shouldn't care. You really, really shouldn't care, but your mind is buzzing and he's so _pretty_ , and-

”Shit!”

In the distance, the unmistakable sound of a car roars and moments later, headlights appear over a hill.

”Cops!”

Everyone moves, everyone but you, and you try to catch up to what's happening. Beer is poured out, cups shoved into the same plastic bag they appeared from. Tony works fervently to disassemble his boombox system and Natasha and Clint are already two dark shadows in the distance.

”Clint!” you call after him, suddenly back to being six and he's running off to fetch your parents, leaving you alone.

_No, wait. Not alone._

”Come on.”

A hand grips yours and before you know it, you're running, following Bucky blindly over the dark fields. Your feet scramble to keep up and not trip over themselves or the rocks that litter the ground. Sam, the idiot, whoops again before he speeds past somewhere to your right, and you think you hear Tony lumbering behind you, hampered by his equipment. The headlights roam the open expanse, like a beacon searching for them, and you gasp when it briefly floats over you. Bucky's hair is fanning out behind him as he sprints, his hand clasping yours tightly. You make it to the hedge, diving into it headfirst and landing in a tangle of limbs. For five, maybe ten dragging minutes you lie there, shallow breaths and watchful eyes, Bucky's arm slung protectively over you. Finally, the headlights stop searching and the cops drive off again.

It's a quiet and slightly wobbly walk home. You've got branches stuck in your hair, and you flush again because you must look a mess, and Bucky is there, right next to you, matching your steps as he walks you home. Approaching your backyard, you can see the light on in Clint's room, but thankfully nowhere else. Still, it irritates you. He should've waited for you. He should have waited, damnit.

”You gonna be ok?”

Bucky's question takes you by surprise, and your head swims when you snap to meet his gaze. Is he not drunk? Is that something that happens when you go to college? You only had... a couple. Not even full beers. Sips, a few of them. Why is he not like this?

”I'll be fine,” you mumble, chewing on the inside of your lower lip.

Bucky smiles, soft and reassuring, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. Your eyes meet and there is a hesitancy in his that you just _know_. You know it without having properly experienced it, but you know it in your heart and soul, and it's enough to engage a strange autopilot that has your insides suddenly quiet and lax, your feet rising to their toes and your eyes fluttering shut.

It's not what you fully expect, and years later you chalk it up to inexperience, to your first time being tipsy. But you never forget Bucky's lips pressing softly to your cheek, lingering for just a fraction before bidding you goodnight and disappearing down the small path between your house and your neighbour's. Some would say it doesn't count, but it does to you.

Your first kiss was Bucky Barnes.


	3. III

_We found weekend jobs, when we got paid_   
_We'd buy cheap spirits and drink them straight_   
_Me and my friends have not thrown up in so long_

”Domino’s, may I take your order?”

So it's not the most glamorous job in the world. It's the worst. It's slaving for minimum wage in Satan's sweaty armpit while hoards of rude customers chip away at your faith in humanity. You keep repeating that it's only for another couple of months more, that you need the money, that it's a good experience. You roll your eyes when the line crackles as the customer hushes violently into the receiver.

”Shh! Shut up, Steve, I'mma order!”

No. No fucking way.

”Sam?”

”Huh? Sorry, did I misdial?” He sounds drunk, and you're more than a little jealous. Working the evening shift on a Saturday night sucks extra hard.

”Not unless you want pizza. But it's Sam, right? Sam Wilson?”

”Yeah...”

”We grew up together, you know my brother Clint, ” you explain. It's been a while. A year or so, maybe two, possibly three, since you last saw him.

”Wait, is this... Baby Barton?”

The nickname stuck after that night when you got drunk for the first time, and you've bristled enough over it that even Clint's over the novelty.

”I wish you'd stop calling me that.”

”Hell, no! Holy fuck, haven't seen you in ages!”

”Technically, you're not seeing me now either,” you point out into your headset.

”Still with the claws, Bab-” He almost says it but corrects himself with a swallow that might also be a suppressed burp. ”Barton.”

”What can I getcha?”

As much as you'd love to chat with Sam, you're on the clock. Brass don't like it when you stretch out calls for too long, and you're already pushing it.

”Yo, Steve! Whaddaya havin'?”

You can't hear the answer, and part of you is wondering if the Steve in the background is your Steve, Clint's Steve, and if so... Shaking your head, you force the thought away. Out of all your brother's friends, Bucky's the one that's seemingly disappeared from the face of the earth. You saw him at Christmas after the beer-incident, and the summer after, but then he never really came home. It pained you to not know where he went, however you didn't feel like you could ask Clint. He was too invested in his studies, didn't go to the same college, and at the time it felt too awkward to ask your brother why the friend you maybe-sorta had a crush on didn't come home during breaks anymore. You only met up at the castle a couple more time, each time with fewer and fewer friends, until you realized it would only be you and Clint there, and no way in hell were you getting drunk with your brother.

”Barton? Barton!”

”Hmm?” Sam's voice interrupts your little walk down memory lane.

”Did ya get that?”

”Sorry, bad line,” you lie, perking up to listen for real this time. “Could you say that again?”

”Three large pizzas, one New York, one Meat Feast and one Pepperoni Feast, two orders of cheesy bread and one order of chicken wings.”

”Got it.”

You repeat back the order, give Sam the total and takes his address and credit card number, giving him an estimate of when his order will arrive.

”Hey, Barton, you should come hang out with us. 'S been a while, and... you know.”

”Sam, unless it's slipped your attention, I'm working.”

”All night?”

Okay, so he has a point. You get off your shift in three hours. So what if you are dead on your feet now? You could just pop by, it isn't too far from your own apartment as it turns out. No biggie. Right?

”Come on, Barton. You already have my address,” Sam teases, and you just knows he smiling that crooked smile, all white teeth and chivalrous charm that had all the neighbourhood ladies swooning over Mrs Wilson's perfect little gentleman back in the day.

”Which I shouldn't use for my personal gain!” you hiss at him.

”Come on...”

You sigh, looking over your shoulder. Your co-workers seem busy as ever, zipping back and forth. You shouldn't. But what if... No. Yes. No. But-

”I get off in three hours,” you huffed. ”If I'm not dead, I might swing by.”

”You better! See you round, Baby Barton!”

You allow him that one, in part because Sam hangs up before you can chew him out. Three hours to decide. Pedaling home to conk out on the couch or pedaling off to a semi-reunion. It's a choice that puts a pep in your step, and you breeze through the rude, drunk and semi-incoherent orders until it's time to clock out. By the time you're on your bike, you know you couldn't resist temptation even if you tried.

Sam is a lot more buff than last time you saw him, but has apparently not learned how to hold his liquor. He's a happy drunk, greeting you with a shot glass in each hand and exclaiming ”BABY BARTON!” so loudly it makes you wince quietly. It's a bit embarrassing to have him herd you into the apartment, still in your work pants with a ratty band t-shirt and a sweater to keep you warm, declaring you to be his best friend's baby sister to anyone still sober enough to listen and care.

”Hey, I thought I was your best friend!”

Steve is really your Steve, a mass of muscles and a backwards baseball cap that you hope is only ironic. When he envelopes you in a hug it's something akin to hugging a mountain, but he's as easygoing and polite as ever, running interference when Sam gets a bit too excited. You hover around them, gravitating towards Steve when Sam disappears for refills or a disastrous round of beer pong.

Of course you catch up. It's standard, and exchange of data. Clint's fine, he's out trying to make good on his degree. It's tough, market is what it is, blah blah. Really, Tony got hitched? Natasha's a mystery as always, last Steve heard she was Russia heading up a division for the company she worked for.

”So, what about Bucky?” you ask hesitantly.

Steve cocks his head, his eyes searching your face for something before answering.

”Military,” he then answers, taking a sip of his beer.

”What?”

”Yeah. Didn't finish college. Dropped out and enlisted before our junior year.”

”Oh. Okay. Is he..?”

You're not sure why you're really asking. There was never anything there, nothing more than a silly high school crush that would never become anything. It was a kiss on the cheek, platonic in hindsight. So why is your heart thundering in your chest at the news of Bucky's career?

”He's fine. I think,” Steve blurts out, immediately backpedaling when he sees your shocked expression. ”No, no, he's okay! He calls sometimes when he's back at base, wherever the hell that ends up being. Shit, I have to tell him I met you next time he calls, he'll be so stoked to hear about you!”

”W-why?”

It flashes across his face, so rapidly that anyone else might miss it, but time is different, you know that, and you see it clearly before it's erased and replaced by an easy grin.

”People from the old block, you know. Where everyone ended up. So... where did you end up?”

He's trying to avoid the subject, and you're too tired, too overwhelmed to contest him. You offer up your own story, simple and boring as it might be while Steve nods in all the right places. Conversation dies between you after that, and you end up ducking out just as Sam pukes out the window.

You ponder the night as you bike home through deserted streets. Nothing's like it used to be. When you finally stumble in through the door, you make a beeline for the sorry excuse of a box that constitutes your liquor cabinet, pulling out a bottle off off-brand, cheap-as-they-come vodka and taking a swig. Nostalgia and the wear of a long day thud dully behind your temples and you’re not sure if you want to remember or if this will go down as another “seemed like a good idea at the time”-deal. Try as you might, your thoughts wander, travelling unfathomable miles to a man with blue eyes and cropped hair, tucked away in some hellish corner of the world, and you weep for him when you fall into bed.


	4. IV

_And I'm on my way,_  
_I still remember these old country lanes_  
_When we did not know the answers_  
_And I miss the way_  
_You make me feel, it's real_

Life never works out the way you plan. For all your years spent studying, you end up in a career almost opposite of what you have a degree in. It's not necessarily bad. It affords you a roof over your head, food in your fridge, material comforts in moderation. It's not exactly something that lights your heart on fire with passion in the morning, but it's safe. Convenient.

You're in your mid-twenties when once again you're summoned back home. It's your first time back in a couple of years, having fielded holidays spent there. You've dutifully showed up at the ones hosted by Clint and his family, but going back hasn't really worked out, and you're not sure why. It's not bad memories. In the grand scheme of things, you had a happy childhood. Maybe it's the echoes of happy memories, of laughter shared that makes the heartache too taxing to come home to.

Still, it's necessary. Your parents are leaving suburbia, the house much too large for their aging bodies. Clint and his family live too far away to visit outside holidays. You don't have a family of your own, and your mother has all but given up on asking you when you'll find someone to settle down with. The house is going up for sale, and you and your brother have been summoned home to wrap up your childhoods and neatly place them in boxes as if cardboard could contain them. Returning home has your stomach in knots as you speed down the roads leading into the belly of the beast. Suburbia is forever.

And yet nothing is the same when you get there.

The street is quiet when you pull up, new names adorning some of the houses that used to belong to your friends and their families. You spend that first night in your old room, for the first time realizing that you could see past the thicket and across the fields. There, in the distance, a smudge that has your heart in your throat, but the castle's no longer a castle, just a bunch of rocks.

You try to go to bed early, telling yourself that you're gonna need it, but sleep evades you, and when you look out the window again at 1 am, you see the outline of someone moving towards the rocks, the soft beam of a flashlight illuminating the path before them. You squint your eyes, but can't make out anything aside from a guess that it's a man. Maybe Clint's snuck out and you didn’t hear it. Wouldn't be the first time. You smile as you remember that one time where Natasha suddenly turned up outside your window, suspended upside down from a rope, cursing your brother for not knowing left from right.

The lone figure pulls at your heart, awakens that sense of adventure that's long lain dormant. Before you know it, you're dressed and sneaking down the stairs, still knowing exactly how to tread to avoid creaking. The hedge is both smaller and a lot trickier to get through, hair snagging on branches and brambles, but you finally emerge and despite so many things having changed, that sensation of entering a different realm still remains. It's with an evergrowing sense of nostalgia, of sense memory kicking in, that you follow the path up to the castle, only to stop dead in your tracks when you see the man perched on top of the largest rock.

Because it isn't Clint.

”Bucky?”

He visibly jerks at the sound of your voice, but his face refuses to betray it when he turns to you. His eyebrows knit together for a moment before realization floods his eyes and he breaks into a smile.

”Barton junior.”

You scrunch up your face. ”Seriously? I mean, it's better than Baby Barton, but really? Would it kill you to call me by my name.”

Something about your quip makes his smile fade, settling into an indifferent line.

”Heard you were coming back. Folks selling the house, right?” he says, taking a swig from a bottle he's kept by his right side.

”Yeah. Feels strange,” you reply, inching closer to him. ”Can I join you?”

Bucky shrugs, but shuffles to the side to allow you space next to him. It takes a few attempts, and a helping hand from Bucky, to get you up. It leaves you snickering, because you're sure these rocks were not this difficult to climb when you were younger.

”Didn't expect company, otherwise, I'd've brought another one,” Bucky says, scraping absentmindedly at the label on the beer bottle.

He's different, not that you'd expected him to be the same. Still, it's vastly different. The others, the ones you've seen or heard from in recent years, they've all retained some of the traits you remember them for. Clint will always be an annoying big brother. Sam still has his charm, Steve a strong sense of duty. Natasha could probably still scare the living crap out of you, and Tony has proven his worth at several tech fairs. But Bucky, something has shifted in him, taken him away from the sweet boy who stayed by your side when you broke your leg, who held your hand and led you home in the darkness, who kissed you sweetly on the cheek and then disappeared into the world.

You gently pull the bottle from him, taking a swig and instantly remembering why you hate beer. Still, you swallow it down with minimal cringing before cracking a smile.

”Don't you remember? I never got my own drink, I just stole from you guys.”

That draws a snort from him as he takes the bottle and tips it back to take another swig.

”That was one of the best nights of my life,” he offers, looking out toward the horizon. ”Last time I was really happy.”

The confession stings at you, because what must have happened for that night to be his last happy memory?

”Steve said you joined the military.”

Bucky nods, but doesn't elaborate, and the realization why he blanched at your initial jibe hits you. Why the fuck would you word it like that?

”Home on leave?” you prod carefully, taking in his silhouette.

His hair is short, a bit tousled maybe, but pushed back into a messy coif of chestnut brown. There are muscles bulging under his thin henley and the stressed denim jeans; he's not as massive as Steve when last you saw him, but enough to fill out his clothes in a way that, yeah, is easy on the eyes.

”Honorably discharged,” comes the clipped answer, followed by a slow exhale. ”Sergeant James Barnes.”

”I'm glad you're home,” you offer, not sure what else to say.

”I'm not,” Bucky bites out, and suddenly, the words flow from him. ”Too many tours to count, and by the end of it, I wasn't even sure what I was doing there anymore. Got out last year and had to move back home, couldn't stay anywhere else. My sister's out conquering the world, and I'm stuck here because too much noise freaks me out.” His voice trembles at the last part, and he lets his eyes fall closed, clenching and unclenching his left fist.

”If it's any consolation, I didn't want to come home either.”

Bucky looks genuinely surprised when he opens his eyes again and fixes his gaze on you. ”Really?”

”It's... weird. This place, I remember it so differently and coming back would mean having to face the fact that nothing will be as it was and... and I didn't think I'd see any of you. Well, except for Clint. I didn't want to face that we... I dunno... changed.”

”What's Clint doing? He was in some sport program at college, right?”

You nod affirmatively before answering. ”Got hit by the economy. Not hard, just... He ended up managing a store. Sells sports clothes. Got a wife and two kids.”

”Steve's got two kids, too,” Bucky supplies, smirking when he sees your eyebrows rise. ”His wife died a few years back. Long-term illness.”

”What about the others? Last I heard, Tony was married.”

”Yeah. Still is. To wife number two. I think they're happy. Natasha's somewhere on the westcoast. Probably killing people with a stare and making an assload of money, you know her. Sharp as a tack. I've talked to Sam a bit after... after I got back. Works at the VA, helped me move. Kinda knew what I was going through.”

”Sam? Sam Wilson?”

”His brother died, did you know that?”

You'd been vaguely aware growing up that Sam had an older brother, Riley. He was five years older, and never hung out with your group. Even so, the announcement comes as a shock.

”Military man, too. Came back from his first tour right after Sam graduated, didn't handle the shift to civvie real well. He... he OD'd. Sam found him, kinda lost his way for a little while.”

Your heart breaks, and you think back to Sam the time he ended up in your order line. Happy, drunk Sam, flitting around the room, puking out a window. Had this just happened then?

”He's doing okay. Straightened out eventually, got involved with the VA. He's a good man.”

”And what about you? You doing okay?”

He looks at you, appraising you, deciding the level of truth he can hit you with. The lines in his face eventually soften, perhaps recognizing a kindred spirit as he brings up his hand to gently caress your cheek. The soft touch makes you shudder, distant memories of longing for a moment like this clawing their way to the surface.

”I'm getting by. Barely, but I'm trying. I've still got this place, right?” He motions to your little fortress, the fields that hold a magic able to suspend reality.

”Yeah,” you breathe, pulling at your cardigan. ”Yeah, you do.”

The two of you sit quietly, unaffected by the slight chill in the air. At some point, you doze off, sleeping through dreamless darkness leaned up against Bucky for a good thirty minutes, waking up as the sky slowly starts to darken towards the western horizon. The sun is a mere sliver at the very edge, hanging on desperately. You're too tired, head still too sluggish to even feel embarrassed about it.

”Evenin',” Bucky greets you, and finally you see part of him as he used to be in the soft smile that graces his lips. ”Saved you this.”

You blink a couple of times before you find focus on the beer bottle, a half inch of liquid still at the bottom of it. Maybe once, you would have emptied it, but now you only punch him lightly in the arm, grabbing the bottle and holding it to your chest as if it's a treasured keepsake.

”Hey,” you mumble, trying to blink away the lingering sleepiness. ”You said last time you were happy it was here. The night the cops came.”

”Yeah, so?”

”That was my first time drunk,” you muse, giggling at the memory. ”Why is it your last happy memory?”

Bucky ponders the question for a while, his eyes roving the field and the sharp colours of the sky that steadily bleed into the darkness. You begin to regret asking, fearing you've overstepped your boundaries.

”Because we were all here. We were all still kids. There was adventure and...”

”And what?”

”I kissed you.”

Objectively, you know it happened. You were there, you've lived in the memory of it since. People tend to remember their first kiss, but for as much as you claim it as your first, you never really thought Bucky would remember it. It wasn't a kiss on the lips, you weren't together, and yet that evening, that moment has stayed in his mind; his last happy moment.

Bucky lets out a shaky laugh. ”I was so nervous. Steve kept teasing me, told me to just go ahead and do it, even if it was gonna get me killed. I was... not really embarrassed, but, you know, hesitant...”

”Hesitant?” you parroted, staring him down because the words coming out of his mouth don't seem to translate correctly in your mind.

”No, shit, I mean- You were my friend's little sister. We grew up, and then you were there, and you weren't a little kid. Well, you were, kinda, and that was another thing. I couldn't- I wanted to kiss you, really kiss you. Clint would have had my head, you have no idea how protective that guy is of you.”

”I don't need him to fight my fights for me,” you pointed out sourly.

”I know. Look at you,” He finally meets your gaze, motioning to your form and you pulls your knees up against you, ”you got out of this hellhole mostly unscathed. Just trust me when I say I wish that kiss could have been more. It was the best I could do, and it was the best I ever got.”

There is a sense of nostalgia as he breathes out the last part, not looking at you, but out towards the open sky. Something stirs in your heart, a small part you were sure had been extinguished or at the very least resolved. It's that small glimmer of longing that flickers to life with sense memory of his lips against your cheek, the shadow of a younger version of yourself, hoping against hope that there could be more.

”It doesn't have to be.”

For a moment, you think Bucky hasn't heard you. He's still got his eyes trained on the fading sun, and it's only when you lean forward that you see his eyebrows are knit together, the right side of his lower lip caught between his teeth. Maybe you're not the only one stunned by something said. You're about to repeat his name, lips already pressed together to pronounce it when he finally turns, scans your face and quickly dips forward to kiss you, really _kiss_ you. It's a kiss you have waited for since 15, a kiss you finally realize you can't anticipate, can't prepare for, because it's magical. It's magical like the suspension of time soaring through the air when you were six, it's magical like this place that seems to exist both beyond reality and smack dab in the middle of it. It's magical because life slots into place with the soft undulation of lips against lips.

You kiss like it's the end of the world, you kiss like it's the very beginning of it. Bucky lets out a breath through his nose, the warmth of it fanning softly across your face. Arms come up to wrap around your shoulders, angling you more toward him and you melt, knees going lax and sinking downwards until they dangle over the edge of the rock once again. Gradually, the kiss becomes sweet pecks becomes foreheads resting against one another becomes a hug tucked tightly against the crooks of the other's neck.

If there was a chill in the air of the impending night, you don't feel it. Bucky's body is warm against yours, his hands splayed over your back, holding you to him. You nuzzle into him, pressing a kiss to the soft skin before remembering the bottle in your hand. Smiling, you squirm out of his grip to hold the bottle out, tipping it upside down and letting the stale beer water the grass beneath you.

”To getting by,” you smile, and this time, your instincts serve you right.

Your eyes flutter close and Bucky's lips meet yours again in a kiss that promises to last a lifetime.

_And I miss the way_  
_You make me feel, and it's real_  
_We watched the sunset over the castle on the hill_


End file.
